This invention relates to a device for testing the hardness or rot depth of a power pole, for example a telephone pole, comprising a frame portion, a penetration portion located in or at the frame portion and intended, in response to an actuation force, to penetrate into the pole material, and members exposed to actuations, by which members the actuation force for the penetration portion is produced.
The new testing device is intended to be used for testing the rot depth and/or hardness in telephone poles or other corresponding power poles, such as power-line poles and the like. Such poles are made of wood and can be impregnated or unimpregnated. In the firstmentioned case salt-impregnated poles decaying from the outside are primarily of interest for the new device according to the invention.
The poles can have been sunk into the ground and are exposed to rotting in their buried portions, especially at the so-called earth band or at the pole portions located at the ground surface. As the poles much be climbed in connection with line work to be carried out high up on the poles, the rotting can involve risk of personal injuries. Regulations are, therefore, set up which prescribe the condition of the poles for being approved. This in its turn has given rise to the desire of being able to check in different connections the depth to which the rotting has proceeded.
The equipment, which heretofore has been used for testing rot depth or hardness, for example, of telephone poles have proved less practical. Test of a relatively great number of poles have been relatively complicated and expensive. For rendering the pole portions susceptible to rotting accessible, it was necessary to remove the soil and the possible wedging about each pole whereafter samples were taken in one or several points along the pole periphery and possibly in a vertical direction of the pole.
In accordance with the present invention, this is not necessary any longer. It is a characterizing feature of the invention, that a frame portion is provided with a part, which can be driven or sunk into the soil support adjacent the pole, and that the penetration portion, which has the shape of a pointed needle or the like, is placed in or at said part. The members for producing the actuation force, by which the penetration portion is controlled, are formed such that in the entirely or partially sunk state of said part, the members extend with their upper parts above the ground and from there it is possible by actuations to produce the actuation force. The invention also comprises the feature that the test device is provided with indicating means showing the degree of penetration of the penetration portion into the pole material when an actuation force of predetermined size is initiated above the ground.
In further embodiments, technical designs of different parts of the test device are proposed which increase the effect of the test tool, which is simple and economic to use in practice. The new test device is easy to handle and has a relatively light weight. The frame portion with associated measuring needle can be driven down, for example, by means of a sledge or some other corresponding tool and/or by mechanic beaters. When the pole is wedged by stones or the like, the frame portion can be driven down between the same.